Book One: Eve's Daughter
by Catina
Summary: You should have read The Amber Spyglass before you read this fic. After Lyra's mysterious murder, her daughter has to avenge her. A morbid fic, but a very good one, despite the bad summary. Must read!
1. Prologue: The Subtle Killer

Book One: Eve's Daughter 

By Mistress of Magic

Disclaimer: I don't own the 'His Dark Materials' trilogy by Phillip Pullman but I'm a big fan. This is my fanfic. Enjoy!!

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Prologue: The Subtle Killer/ _Lyra's Oxford _

Jordan College stood stark and still against the early dawn sky, decisively by far the grandest and largest of all colleges in Oxford, as it had always been. In these last few years, nothing to speak of had changed. The College still spread out over the land it was stationed on, old and new pieces of it dating back from as far back as the Middle Ages to the present, and as splendid as it ever was. 

The Master of Jordan had died a little more than two years ago, an old man of almost ninety. The Jordan Scholars missed his occasional visits—and, possibly more, the happy sounds of their children and the ragamuffin children of the servants enjoying long battles in the claybeds with the young gyptians and clayburners' rascals. 

But most of all, they missed the laughter and constant pranks of the little girl they had loved and raised as their own, although that same little girl, now a blossoming young woman with a child, still lived in the same small, shabby bedroom. 

Inside that little room, Lyra Belacqua-Silvertongue slept peacefully on her narrow bed safely underneath a thin springtime blanket that was printed with paisley designs, something that had come into her possession a short time after her daughter was born. Nydia Belacqua, who was just under two years old, slept as peacefully as her young mother, in the old crib-bed that used to belong to Lyra when she was a baby, her daemon currently assuming the carefree form of a very small pale brown rabbit who was nestled somewhere in the bedclothes near the baby's feet. 

Lyra herself had not changed much within these last few years, either. Nearly a woman of twenty-three, her hair had not yet lost its tawny fairness, nor her eyes their crystalline blueness, like stolen bits of sky. The young mother lay on her back, her hair slightly tangled in sleep, and spread clumsily over her pillow. 

For one looking inside the room, it would be a vision of pure innocence and beauty. 

But the one who was peering inside the room from a door Lyra had left slightly ajar, none of these feelings were his. He wanted to get his assigned mission over and done with. It had been unusually tricky getting inside of Jordan; to him, it felt like anyone at any minute could find him and arrest him. 

No, he mustn't be caught. Not yet, anyway…He still had so much to do left undone. 

He clenched his teeth together and clenched the knife's long handle in his hand, able to remember his exact orders that had been given to him such a short time ago, thankful for his excellent memory. Silently as a cat might, he crept forward, trying to ignore anything that might possibly distract him. 

_            Kill them both! Eve's daughter must die! _

His master's sharp, urgent voice rang through his mind as he prepared to make the move that would end it all. If he succeeded, then this future chaos would all come to an end. 

            It was time to do what he was meant to do. 

             Without a word, the subtle killer plunged the keen-edged dagger into the young woman's breast, and he was not afraid. There would be no consequences. He would never be found after this, could not be blamed. 

            It had happened as quickly as that. 

            For only a moment, Lyra's sky blue eyes fluttered open one last time out of instinct before death, and then painfully closed again as her own death claimed her. Lyra's hand fell limply by her side, off of the bed. She had barely felt anything. 

            The red-gold pine marten's round black eyes never opened---Pantalaimon's entire being simply disappeared, as all daemons do when they finally do die.   

            The little girl who had once roamed the darkening halls of Jordan College and saved the man she called Uncle from the poisoned decanter of Tokay, Lyra Belacqua, also called Lyra of the Silvertongue and Eve by her many allies and friends, was dead, killed by a knife so similar in craftsmanship to the one she had watch be snapped like a twig and broken in another world unlike her own. 

            And now, the wingless angelic creature came for her daughter. Eve's daughter, only a baby, was still asleep, completely unaware of what had just happened to the woman she looked up to and utterly adored even at such a young age. 

            Unaware of what was about to happen to her, unless she was saved by some unthinkable miracle near the end. 

            _ Kill them both…! _

            The assassin did not think; he could not afford to. Just as he was about to take the life of another within the span of that early predawn time, he…stopped. Stopped as if some unseen force had taken him firmly by the wrist, and was holding the acute dagger there in midair tightly. 

            "Argghh!" the killer growled, trying to free his wrist from whatever force or benevolent spirit was holding him back. "No!" whatever it was, it was not letting him kill the baby. 

            He scratched and clawed at his wrist, urgently trying in vain to free himself to carry out the mission he had been born for. He could barely feel what was stopping him. It was like some strange specteral form had its icy hand around his arm, and whenever he tried to rip it off, it only got tighter. The wingless angel could feel nails digging quite deeply into his tender skin. 

            In almost no time, there was blood running in thin rivulets down his pale arm, some of it falling in fat drops to the hard wooden floor he stood on, staining it with three crimson spots. 

            The angel only stood there for a millisecond before valiantly attempting to switch the knife to his left hand. But it was not working. Eve's daughter would live well beyond the time when she had at first been destined to die. 

            "What—is—this?" the assassin stammered aloud. Whatever force was keeping him from his duty must have been very great. Indeed, the angel himself felt as if he was about to also die. 

            The air that surrounded the humanlike angel suddenly seemed to hold much more fearsome pressure that it ever had before, overly strong even for an elite being such as he. Blood continued to course freely in tiny scarlet streams that bent, intertwined, and connected over the entire surface of his arm. It ran down his side as a single pale blue vein underneath his hand that seemed to be as delicate as fine filigree was severed by what felt like a knife. 

            The angelic assassin was losing the battle with the spirit, and finally beginning to die as well, just as the morning sun was beginning to rise. What little amount of strength he had left was leaving his body fast. 

            The battle was a silent one; none of the boarding Scholars ever suspected anything. The wingless angel-assassin slowly died there in the College of Jordan without anyone ever knowing, and the child Nydia Belacqua-Silvertongue, the only child of Lyra and Will Parry, remained alive and completely unharmed, while her young mother lay dead. The knife, with its blade covered in blood, lay motionless on the floor, near the foot of the bed. 

            The golden sunlight softly illuminated the whole room, which in the wee hours before dawn, had been transformed into a murder scene. In such a short time, two had undoubtedly lost their lives, and it was those two whose deaths would be mourned and someday avenged by others. 

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Mistress: Sad beginning, huh folks? Don't worry. I'm not about to give away the rest of the plot, but it does get better. 

For all those who were wondering who/what the spirit/force was, you'll find out later. ^_~


	2. Part One: Lyra’s Death

Book One: Eve's Daughter 

By Mistress of Magic

Disclaimer: I don't own the 'His Dark Materials' trilogy by Phillip Pullman but I'm a big fan. This is my fanfic. Enjoy!!

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Part One: Lyra's Death/ _The Northern lands, 3 months later_

For three months now, the wind had come in from the East, carrying with it a different note of sadness as it whistled through the branches of tall cloud-pines. For the witches of Queen Serafina Pekkala's clan, it not only lifted long, wild hair and caused the air to be filled with the sounds of rustling black silk, but somehow made them want to be more wary. 

Something was wrong. 

The witch Serafina Pekkala herself noticed it the most. She had always been able to commune with nature well as all witches could innately, and felt the extra icy chill the wind current brought along, laced with some subtle, dark, ominous sensation the clan queen couldn't quite place. 

In a way, it frightened her. She felt the sadness that rode upon the breeze. The cold wind caressed her cheeks some days, and it brought burning tears to her eyes. Depression was something she never felt, ever. Serafina had done her share of crying in her time, but never without a reason to it. Her pale gray snow goose daemon, Kasia, felt it too, as she did. 

Kasia caught the updraft, and rose, but it seemed he did this reluctantly. "Do you feel that?" he whispered quietly, although he knew the answer he would get. 

"Yes," was all Serafina Pekkala said, looking directly ahead of her. Kasia craned his long neck to get a better view of his beloved witch; she was gripping the slim branch of cloud-pine she flew on so hard, her knuckles were turned white. 

_She flies so slowly_! Kasia thought. On any other given day, Serafina flew close beside their other witch companions, swooping through the air to mimic Kasia, as she had done when she was a child. 

To Kasia's surprise, Serafina Pekkala suddenly said, "Do you think she remembers us?" 

Kasia knew exactly whom the witch meant. Lyra. 

"Of course she does!" Kasia said, trying to sound a little more cheerful. All the witches needed it, not only his. "We remember her…" 

The last time Serafina Pekkala had seen Lyra was close to eleven years ago. 

_It seems like the last time I saw her and spoke to her wasn't that long ago at all_, Serafina thought. The witch was three hundred years old or more; still considered young, by witch standards. To a short-life, she would appear possibly no more than the age Lyra would be now. _But I feel so old lately_.  

"I miss her," Serafina Pekkala blurted spontaneously, hoping none of the other witches had heard the outburst, no matter how quiet it may have been. She felt the hot tears well up in her eyes again for the second time that day, and fought to keep them back.   

"I know," Kasia agreed. _Serafina loved that little girl we saved from Svalbard and those terrible child-cutters like her own_, he thought.  

Serafina Pekkala heard Kasia's thoughts, but did not say anything against them. It was true, after all. 

Still, she had a bad feeling about something. 

"I…I think something is wrong, Kasia," Serafina said after some time, staring out at the witches that flew well in front of her. "Something, I think, that concerns us. No, I know something is wrong. I've felt it for some time now." 

"So have I," the gray snow goose said. "Does it have to do with Lyra, do you think?" 

"I don't know, Kasia," Serafina Pekkala said. "I just don't know." She took one hand off of her branch of cloud-pine to drag across her eyes, and it immediately turned from white to blushing red as blood rushed back into her cold fingertips. 

"But…you wish you did," Kasia whispered. 

"Yes. I do," Serafina replied. She sighed, and turned her head away from the gray snow goose to gaze at the horizon to her left. The sun was sinking behind the high mountains, changing the tall cloud-pines to dark silhouettes. 

When it was night, the witches guided their cloud-pines to the ground to sleep where they usually did, and eat. Serafina Pekkala leaned her branch of cloud-pine against a large, rough-barked tree of its own kind. Kasia flew up into the same tree, and promptly tucked his head under his right wing. He was tired.  

Serafina was also tired more or less, but hungry, and slid her longbow off of her shoulder where it had been strapped across her chest, and quickly nocked an arrow pulled out of the deerskin quiver at her back in its place. She and many of the other witches ventured off into the darkening forest to check traps set the day before, or somewhere off near a field to hunt, always with a witch or two nearby in case anything should happen. 

She crept lightly through the thick, knee-high grass of the wide field, and spotted a sleek, dark brown hare almost at once. The witch pulled the bowstring until it felt as though the arrow would go far enough, aimed, and let go. The arrow whizzed through the air, and sped directly through the hare's throat, killing it at once. One rabbit would be quite enough, and this one was skinny; and Serafina Pekkala was not _that _hungry. 

The witch queen picked up the dead hare from the ground, and slung it over her shoulder to cook over a fire to bring back to where the witches were camping that night on the grassy hill, as many others were now doing. She made the fire when she got back, and had the rabbit skinned and already roasting, skewered on a green stick on a spit to cook over the flames near the other witches' fires, before going to sleep with the rest. 

Serafina Pekkala slept and she dreamed. 

_It is before dawn. It is easy to see the sun has not yet risen, because the small, bare room is not yet light…Someone sleeps on a narrow bed so peacefully…It is a young woman with a beautiful red-gold pine marten daemon, asleep at her neck…The woman also has a child, who sleeps beside her in its cradle …… _

_Peace. Love. She loves the child so much! This child is her whole world ……  _

_But there is someone else in the room, quite near to them…A man…No, an angel, but without wings…He seems to be very unlike most angels, though … … _

_The wingless angel watches, as all of his kind do, but for a different purpose…He waits. _

_Waits for what? _

_For the right time to strike. He has…A knife, the angel holds a dagger…in his hand…He watches the mother and child alike ……_

_The angel comes in the guise of the Angel of Death this night…the knife…Like a snake, he strikes! Can't wait any longer …… _

_He plunges the dagger into the young woman's breast, so mercilessly …… _

_For one brief moment, her eyes open, sky blue…one…last…time…They close. She is dead. _

_Dead. _

_The child! He now comes for the child…her mother is dead. The angel wants the child's life, too…Nothing can stop him…Nothing can hold him back …… _

In her sleep, Serafina Pekkala cried out, "No! No, please no, don't kill…"  

_But something does stop him…A force, a spirit…It holds him fast by the wrist…makes him bleed …… _

_Thin rivulets of crimson blood course down his arm, connecting, like a web of red blood …… _

_The angel can't kill the child, but he wants to…so much …… _

"No…!" Serafina wailed without knowing it. The dream was ending. 

"Queen, Queen, wake up! Wake up!" the witches were awakened by their clan queen's cry. It had scared them. She needed help, something was wrong. One on the youngest witches in the clan, not yet a hundred years old, was shaken to tears, not knowing what was happening to Serafina Pekkala. 

_Three fat drops of the angel-assassin's blood fell upon the hard wooden floor beneath him, staining it with three drops of scarlet …… _

_And an unfamiliar voice…So much hatred and sharpness in that voice …… _

_"Kill them both!" it says. "Eve's daughter must die!"   _

She woke up screaming! 

"Lyra!" Serafina Pekkala screamed. "No! No!" 

"Queen, are you alright?" the elderly witch behind Serafina, who was holding her queen upright asked. "Please," she said, "tell us, what is happening?"  

Serafina Pekkala gasped, or at least tried to, her chest tightening in pure terror. A much younger witch Serafina knew fairly well came to her with a little horn cup filled with cold water from the nearby stream. Serafina, much too nervous and agitated to possibly eat or drink anything without bringing it back up, waved the water away regretfully with a hand movement that said "No, but thank you."  

"What is wrong?" the elderly witch asked again, more or less as afraid for all Serafina was. The snow goose Kasia lay crumpled like paper on the ground—he had shared his witch's nightmare.     

When the witch was able to catch her breath, she said, "Lyra! Lyra Belacqua. Something's happened to her!" 

"Lyra…" the crowd of women murmured thoughtfully. 

"Eve!" Serafina Pekkala blurted out, thinking the witches were not sure what she meant in her condition, even though they truly did. "Eve, again! Eve, the mother of all!" she was hot, but there were thousands of minute drops of cold sweat beading her forehead and dampening the hair at her hairline and temples. 

"Oh, Yambe-Akka…" Serafina Pekkala moaned, and fainted. 

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Mistress: Dammit, my head hurts! That part took a lot out of me…I'm only thirteen…Man, I need a drink!  BRING ON THE ROOTBEER!!

Catina: *looks at Mistress warily* You better make a GOOD comment on this story or Mistress is going to do something very, very bad. ^_^;;

Mistress: I will burn your children to the ground! Crosses will continue to burn in the backyards of those who…

Catina: *grabs Mistress from behind and puts her in the closet with a straightjacket* 

Mistress: BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!! *laughing crazily*

Catina: _ oyyyyy…Now you know what I have to put up with everyday.


	3. Part Two: The Witches’ Council

Book One: Eve's Daughter 

By Mistress of Magic

Disclaimer: I don't own the 'His Dark Materials' trilogy by Phillip Pullman but I'm a big fan. This is my fanfic. Enjoy!!

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Part Two: The Witches' Council/ _One month later, midnight, full moon _

 At twilight, the huge bonfire, which had been built primarily for light seemed to burn with a certain greenish-blue tinge; it made the witches feel grimmer than they had been in the month that had passed since their clan queen's nightmare. For exactly one month since that horrible night, Serafina Pekkala, who had once been Lyra Belacqua's friend and ally, had not spoken to anyone at all, not even to the witches that were closest to her. She had hardly eaten; she and her snow goose daemon Kasia only exchanged mind-thoughts to one another from time to time. 

Hot tears of salt streaked down Serafina's pale cheeks as she stood alone on top of a large gray boulder that served as a dais, and prepared to speak. Tonight was the night it would all have to come out. Her time of silence was over. The witch had thought this all out, even though she had desperately wanted to erase the whole incident from her memory forever. 

"Whoever has done this, Kasia," Serafina said through clenched teeth, addressing her daemon, "will die. I can and will promise them that. They cannot get away from me with the thing they have done!" the daemon's black eyes were hard. 

The rest of the witches knew about their queen's dream, and shared her feelings—although most of them had not directly known the little girl their kind had called Eve for countless generations. Serafina Pekkala had been Lyra's friend, her true friend. 

She would avenge her death. 

And she was more ready than she had ever been in her life. 

Serafina stood up as straightly as she could, so that she could be seen by all present. Her mouth was set firmly; the witch's long hair, which was noticeably fairer than Lyra's had been, lay over her shoulders, loosely tangled. Her eyes, which were usually as bright-green as cloud-pines catching the glare of the setting sun, had lost their twinkle, and were red from her angry crying. The witches were sure they had never seen their sister appearing so haggard.  

The witches, young and old, grew suddenly very quiet as they waited for Serafina Pekkala to speak to them. 

"Is this all true?" a witch perhaps a little younger than Serafina with a colorful sharp-beaked lyrebird daemon perched heavily on her shoulder whispered to another witch who stood very stiffly beside her. "That the all-mother Eve is really dead?" 

"Shh!" the witch scolded her. "Of course it is! Now mind yourself, Tania Iemi!" in agitation—for she had been one of those who had helped save the children from the child-cutters at Bolvanger and Svalbard—and made a low, hissing sound at the base of her throat. She faced Serafina Pekkala and waited, acting as calmly as she could. 

Then Queen Serafina Pekkala of Lake Enara began her speech: 

"Sisters!" she cried in anguish. "Listen to me! You all know what has happened. In my dream, I was able to see Lyra…Someone—some_thing_ has destroyed her! An assassin! I saw him—he was like an angel, one of the watchers, of the _bene elim_. in his right hand, he held a knife—Lyra Belacqua-Silvertongue, the witches' Eve, has been murdered." 

For a moment, Serafina paused to stare out at the crowd, and then went on: 

"My sisters," she said, "I tell you, I _will _avenge her death! I will find this angelic assassin and destroy him and all he worked for, even if it kills me!" and to emphasize her determination, the witch queen pulled her own one-bladed knife out of her belt, and brandished it at her entire clan, not an unthreatening act. 

"The angel wanted to also destroy Lyra's daughter, possibly more than he wanted Lyra. Sisters, she was only a child. A baby. He wanted her dead, and so did someone else. I heard a voice…it may have been a human, or another of the angels, I don't know, nor do I care, as long as I in turn kill him in the end. I think the voice must have been the angel's thought-voice, as he remembered his exact orders. It said, 'Kill them both! Eve's daughter must die!' 

"I want the other witch queens to know all that has happened, in case they do not. I will fly and consult Ruta Skadi, Reina Miti and Ieva Kasku about what I am about to do. Perhaps their wisdom is more qualified than my own. I am so lost…they will know where I should turn." 

Serafina fell silent for a few moments again in thought. Then she turned to her daemon and said quietly, "Kasia, I place you for now in command while I am gone." And, "I fly early morning tomorrow," she said to the witches. "Sleep for now, and please, take care. Begin to follow me when you hear my call. I believe the one who killed Lyra can and will also destroy anyone who gets in his way, surely including us. Goodnight." 

With that, Serafina Pekkala jumped down from the rock, and followed the gray snow goose into the darkening night. 

The next morning's light was still gray and the misty fog still quite thick when Serafina mounted the branch of cloud-pine and set off into the pale, windy sky. Serafina would have a long ways to go before she reached the large, slightly warmer region the Latvian witch Ruta Skadi ruled over. But if she kept up the steady, strong, fast pace she was going at now, then she might arrive there some time within the noon of the day after. 

Serafina Pekkala could not stop wondering why the angel had murdered Lyra. What could this all mean? _Not every angel is on the right side_, she thought. _But I learned that to be true a long time ago_.  

She could still clearly remember the sleeping Lyra's face from her dream. The little girl she once knew had grown older over the years as all short-lifes do, but all in all had not changed so drastically as many short-lifes do in eleven years. The witch felt a cold chill at the core of her spine, but it was only the northern wind, as usual. But the witch shuddered as if a lone spirit had touched her cheek anyway; she was alone in the sky. 

Her mind was in a turmoil, and Serafina barely noticed it when a strong gust of wind rushed by her, rustling the dark green needles of her cloud-pine and tossing the witch much higher up in the sky than she intended, like a light breath feather. Serafina took her cloud-pine in a tighter grip, and looked ahead of her, breathing in hard to try and clear her thoughts. She knew she would have to keep her head on her shoulders, for Lyra's daughter's sake. She quickened her speed and headed in a straight, sure direction, straining not to think about what things, no matter how terrible they were, had come to pass. 

But she did not sense the hate-filled eyes upon her from the craggy, treacherous cliffs below her. 

In the wide, overcast skies towards the Southern lands, the Latvian witches flew a little higher than was usual for them, sitting rigidly upon their slim branches of cloud-pine. They spoke among one another, but in hushed tones, flying towards the great North. 

Leading them at the front, Queen Ruta Skadi flew along silently, her ears perked up and ready. If there was anything to hear riding on the sweet swell of the wind as light and mingling as foam riding the crest of a wave in the ocean below them, she wanted to be the first of the witches to hear it, as she had for almost four months now, for it was hear the skies were becoming thinner, at this particular height, and they would become thinner at intervals the closer to the North the witches flew. 

The dampish wind without warning filled with the sounds of a thousand small, light voices that conversed in hushed, frightened voices. Their speech seemed angry, somehow, and urgent, as if what they said was a warning for none others but the witches themselves. Sentence upon sentence made it sometimes impossible to decipher what was being said; but the Latvian witches knew these voices came from another world that was joined on to their own, or any other number of universes, and it could be important. And, as clan queen, Ruta Skadi thought she needed to know what these otherworldly beings said to her or anyone else, just for peace of mind. 

Why did these voices today seem so menacing? Was not today the same as any other day?  

Ruta Skadi's dark eyes were wide with frightening excitement as she dipped lower in midair; she had no wish to fly where it would be hard to breathe. There was no need to worry about the other witches, even the youngest of them, because the all knew somehow intrinsically the air levels were the atmosphere became thin. 

Her bluethroat daemon, Sergi, fluttered closely beside her, and whispered in his witch's ear the most recent things he had heard the voices say, which were the things spoken in the quietest and most subtle of voices, that not even the witches with their sharp hearing could hear. Bird daemons everywhere, who had previously been sent out to be the witches' ears, were now beginning to fly back to their witches from every direction, in every which way. The air was filled with the sound of many beating wings. 

Sergi flew into the witch's curly black hair to get closer to share her warmth, and said, "I heard only fragments, and like everyone else… I heard something about someone dying! Was it about someone important, do you think, Ruta Skadi?" The bluethroat studied his witch's pale face when she turned to meet his eyes, but the witch said nothing to her daemon at first. 

Ruta Skadi knew what the small bird, who was similar to an oriole but with brown- and black-feathered wings and a throat and breast as blue as bright larkspur blossoms, was speaking to her about. She had, of course, as many of her witches also had, heard the words "death," and "die" more than they cared to recently, but had no clues whatsoever concerning who had died, or who was dying as she and Sergi spoke. A few of the witches, their clan queen included, had even heard sounds of low, far-off weeping, the sounds of a woman weeping with enragement and deep sorrow.  

"Are they speaking to us, Sergi?" Ruta Skadi asked, also taking care to acknowledge the disembodied whispers, if they would answer the main question she had been inquiring of herself during these last few months. "I want to know! There is no telling who has died, witch or human alike." 

"Our sister witches want the answer as much as we do," Sergi said in reply, "but there are times when such things are beyond even our own understanding." The bluethroat daemon thought again of the relentless weeping, and the sensation of a heart torn into it always brought with it. The witch flying next to him also remembered the sound as well as her daemon. "Ohhh…" Ruta Skadi said in a soft voice, and shuddered, with the instinctive need to run away from what was possibly danger. "Something is happening, Sergi," she said. "And I think…I think someone is coming, too."  

She could recall very well eleven or so years ago, when the witches of her clan and the witches of every other clan, too, had heard the same unestablished voices coming from other worlds talking about a little girl, a young short-life, who had been called Eve by witches for generations upon generations—a little girl who had been destined like so many others since before she was born, to play a part in the prophecy, that, if fulfilled properly, would bring about the end of destiny. 

_But_, Ruta Skadi wondered, _was that prophecy ever completely fulfilled? _She had never decided that for herself. 

…And then, the answer came to her ears from another world of worlds: _It hasn't_. 

Together, they watched the young fair-haired witch fly on and on, it seemed, endless flying, over the high, mountainous cliffs of rocks streaked with varying shades of white, to gray, to black, which they both stood on. She had been flying at a very noticeably faster rate for a long time now. Wherever she was going, she was trying to get there faster than ever. 

"Has she seen us?" he wingless one asked, clumsily scrambling up a tall boulder to get a better view, instead of staying down, like he knew he was supposed to. "She doesn't seem to be looking our way…" 

The other did not answer his companion's question right away; instead he hissed, "Get down from there! She _will _see us if you don't!" The watcher spread a pair of large snow-white wings as if stretching them, and then closed them again.

The younger one did as his elder had commanded, but angrily said under his shaky breath, "I will kill her, that witch! She was a friend of Eve, and she'll protect the daughter, too, you just watch!" his hand was locked firmly on the plain hilt of the bronze-bladed dagger at his waist, and he watched the figure in the sky with pure contempt. "She must be destroyed!" he growled. "They killed my—" 

      "Hush," the winged elder said calmly, just as if the one next to him had said nothing at all. "All in due time; all in due time. Just because Eve, I remind you, _Eve_ took your twin's life, does not mean you too should lose yours by rushing into that witch there. Nay, be quiet. The prophecy will play on if you allow it to—and dark Lilith will die, I promise you. This is all for the greater good."  

"Yes. And I will avenge Aluris' death." 

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Mistress: Hello. Sorry that chapter wasn't that good. Catina took me out of my straight jacket just now so I could type out the comments, after my rest. I'm sitting here with a nice shotglass full of rootbeer (which Catina checked for anything besides rootbeer I may have *accidentally* put in) so I can take my riddilin so I won't be hyper active, and so I can concentrate on my fanfic a little better. 

Catina: I had to get rid of all that vodka she bought. 

Mistress: You WHAT?! I'LL _KILL_ YOU!! CATINA no BAKA!  

Catina: *sweatdrops* Ohhh, I'm in for it now. Yambe-Akka! Come to me! 

Mistress: Just so you'll remember, Yambe-Akka is the witches' goddess that brings death. Her visits are gifts of joy. Right now, you see, our dear Catina wishes Yambe-Akka would come for her life before I take it myself to add to my beautiful Collection. 

Catina: COLLECTION?! 

Mistress: Yeah. Collection. *Unsheathes knife and smiles*  I think our dear Catina needs some joy in her life. 

Catina: O_o Um…bye!!  *runs away* 


	4. Part Three: The Witch Queens

Book One: Eve's Daughter 

By Mistress of Magic

Disclaimer: I don't own the 'His Dark Materials' trilogy by Phillip Pullman but I'm a big fan. This is my fanfic. Enjoy!!

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Part Three: The Witch Queens/ _One day later, Ruta Skadi's territory _

"I think it is Serafina Pekkala," Ruta Skadi said firmly as she stood up. Her face was troubled. "I can sense her aura. Oh, Sergi, it is something urgent! I wonder what is wrong? She seems to be shaking---this concerns our witches, too." the witch turned her head to look at her bluethroat daemon, who was currently perched on her shoulder. Her eyes were deeply worried. "She's coming, and she'll be here soon, if nothing prevents her." 

"What do you think it is?" Sergi asked. 

"I don't know," Ruta Skadi simply replied.   

Sergi chose to say nothing in return, but he did not doubt his witch's words in the least. She always seemed to be right about these sort of things. He instead flew into one of the thin, low branches of a youngish cloud-pine tree, the one he and the witch had slept under that night. 

The witches were scattered around wherever, the older ones mostly talking near their campfires, and some of the younger witches flying upwards into the clear sky, chasing their bird daemons. The day had dawned cool and of a dreamy sort, and that seemed the thing for them to do. But Ruta Skadi was doing neither of these things; she was with Sergi, under the trees where they liked it best, reasonably away from the other witches, where they could talk without being disturbed for a good while. 

"I am going to fly up, and look for her," Ruta said absently, taking hold of her cloud-pine. "I think…I think Serafina Pekkala will want to talk to me. It will be important." The witch suddenly threw her slim branch of cloud-pine into the air, and leaped upwards to meet it. She swung her right leg over, and kicked off the ground hard. Ruta Skadi willed, as all witches do when flying, the cloud-pine to rise, and was off. Sergi followed her. 

Serafina Pekkala knew she was there, or almost there. Witches could navigate better than the best birds, and although she had never been anywhere this far away from home, she could tell she was getting nearer. It was in their blood. But the witch was tired; she had not stopped to rest once during the entire time she had been flying. The wind, which was noticeable warmer than the air currents of her own territory, pressed against her face and body as she sped on, _on_. She squinted her eyes, and strained to see if there were any witches, airborne or earthbound, anywhere nearby. She was so tired. The witch queen could feel a sort of pull at her heart. _I should_ _have taken Kasia with me_, she thought, painfully thinking of her daemon. _I need to rest! _Serafina suddenly felt very lightheaded. She bent forward on her cloud-pine, and willed it clumsily downwards. As it sped in a quavering line towards the hard earth below, she did not see the single witch and her bluethroat daemon who watched her fall.   

High in the air, Ruta Skadi flew this way and that, turning and looping to see in all directions and between then. There was nothing she or Sergi, who she sent out farther than she herself had gone, near the horizon, where there were large, dark storm clouds beginning to build up. After half and hour, still nothing. But then, just as the witch and her bluethroat daemon were about to give up, she caught sight of what to her looked like a minute black dot, which seemed to be falling like a shooting star out of the corner of her eye. 

She gasped, and spun around. "There she is!"  

"What's wrong?" Sergi asked, very much alarmed. "Is she falling?" the bluethroat noted the awkward position in witch the other witch was falling. 

"I don't think so," Ruta Skadi said, shooting off in the direction the other witch was falling. "But I think she needs us! Quickly, let's catch her! She could be hurt!" the bluethroat chirped twice loudly in agreement, and flew at his witch's side. 

"Serafina Pekkala!" Ruta Skadi yelled, putting her hand to her mouth to emphasize her voice. "Sister, hear me! Stop!" 

Serafina heard the other witch's cry, and the strong, fast wingbeats of her daemon. She breathed in, hard, as the witch Ruta Skadi, her eyes bright with alarm and some fear, flew forward and stopped the other queen. "Serafina!" she breathed. "What is wrong?" 

For a moment, the fair-haired witch blinked at her rescuer uncomprehendingly. Then she whispered something in so soft a voice Ruta Skadi could not hear. Ruta put her hand on Serafina's back to steady the both of them, and said, "Come with me, we will talk after you rest." Serafina said, "Yes, after I rest…Sister, I thank you." she still seemed quite dazed. 

"Serafina, tell me, what has happened? What is wrong?" Ruta Skadi inquired after Serafina Pekkala had rested and was safely on the ground. The clan queen of Lake Enara and the Latvian queen were completely alone now, and they could finally speak to one another in peace. The two witches sat together on a great fallen log, which lay heavily over a small stream in the quiet of the deep, green forest. 

"Ruta Skadi," Serafina Pekkala said quietly, saying her friend and ally's name slowly. "I came to tell you, about the dream I had." 

The Latvian queen listened to Serafina intently. To someone who didn't know Serafina, or any witch well, it would have sounded quite silly, what the clan queen of Lake Enara was about to say. However, Ruta Skadi knew it was something else. What witch with any head on her shoulders would want to spontaneously leave her entire clan only to tell another of some simple _dream_? 

For Serafina Pekkala, this had been no _dream_ at all, but a true nightmare, which had been more vivid than anything she had ever witnessed while she was sleeping. 

Ruta knew this would be important, and waited patently for her sister witch to begin. 

"The witches' Eve," Serafina Pekkala said softly. "is dead. In my dream, I could see her. Not the little girl we witches rescued from Bolvanger and Svalbard. She had grown up, as all short-lifes eventually do…yes, Lyra Silvertongue was a grown woman, with a child. The child was only a baby. A girl. Something---" It was here she paused for a moment, swallowing hard before going on. "Some_one_," she corrected herself, "was sent to destroy the both of them. I saw him. The assassin was a man, I think, and an angel from the looks of him…" Serafina's voice suddenly trailed off when she saw Ruta Skadi's mouth open. 

"An angel!" she said, shocked. "Why would an angel want to take the lives of a young woman and her child?" she believed Serafina's words. "And a daughter, at that!" Ruta Skadi thought of Lyra, whose spirit was pure witch-oil. Lyra had been Lord Asriel's child, and she should have been her mother. Ruta Skadi had always wanted a daughter to be clan queen after she was gone, but had never had children. The thought of someone—an _angel_, especially, trying to kill the child who should have been hers and that child's child was…horrifying! Terrible.  

"There was something different about this angel," Serafina Pekkala went on. "He was wingless." 

"A _wingless_ angel?" Ruta Skadi whispered in amazement. She seemed to hold her breath for no longer than two seconds, and then said, "Yes. I do know what you speak of. This wingless angel must have been a nephilim, a being half angel and half mortal. I have heard tales about these creatures…although I cannot recall if anyone ever mentioned them having wings or not." 

"I don't know," was all Serafina Pekkala said in reply. "But this angel-assassin…he held a knife, its blade so mirror-dark and sharp…he stabbed Lyra." Here, Serafina's green eyes filled with tears, although they did not spill over onto her pale cheeks immediately. The last of her words were difficult to say aloud. "He murdered her," the witch said angrily. She said this through clenched teeth. 

"And what of her child?" Ruta Skadi said, leaning into the other witch, embracing her, and feeling the hot, salty tears against her bare skin. "Is she dead, too?" 

"No," Serafina said, suddenly sitting up straight, defying her anger and utter sorrow. "The child lived, and is still alive, I think. I had not known Lyra had a daughter." 

"What happened?" Ruta Skadi wondered. 

"There was some kind of force between the knife and the child," Serafina Pekkala replied. "I have not the slightest idea of what it might have been." She shook her head slowly. "But Eve's daughter is alive, hopefully. And I will avenge her mother's death, come what may." 

"You will," Ruta Skadi said firmly. "And I will find the angel who killed Lyra. He will pay." She stood up, and pulled Serafina upright. "I also want to know why this wingless angel wanted to kill an innocent woman and a child." 

Serafina Pekkala frowned. "The angel is dead. I cannot say exactly _how_ he died, but neither of us will enjoy the pleasure of seeing him die. But all I can tell you, is that he bled, just as we or humans do. When he died, he simply dissaperated. There was not a trace of him left. Only the bright crimson blood."  

"He was defiantly one of the nephilim."  

And then both the witches stood silent for a while, their eyes on the flow of the stream, and the smooth round stones that lie beneath it. 

It was Ruta Skadi who broke the silence, saying, "I will tell the other witch queens about this. They will help me search for this nephilim." She paused, and studied the other witch queen's sad face. "And what will you do, Serafina Pekkala?" she wanted to know. 

"I will go to the place Lyra called Oxford," she said. "There are gyptians now who will help me on my way. Some of them know me. I want to find Lyra Silvertongue's daughter, and see for myself what has truly happened. That is my plan." 

"When will you leave?" Ruta Skadi asked. 

"Now," said Serafina. "And I will return as soon as possible." She looked the Latvian witch in the eye. 

"Then go well, my dear," Ruta Skadi said. They embraced one last time, and then Serafina Pekkala reached for her branch of cloud-pine. "Kasia, come to me!" the witch called, and prepared to leave for the place even farther towards the South, Lyra had called Oxford. 

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Mistress: Yes! Things are really starting to heat up, weather you people think they are or not! I just can't wait to get to the next chapter, and beyond that! 

Catina: What the hell are you talking about? What's going to happen in the next chapter and beyond that? 

Mistress: Shit. You think I'm gonna tell you? *downs shotglass in a single gulp*   

Catina: Here, then, what're you drinking?! 

Mistress: Um… *thinks up quick lie* Rootbeer…? 

Catina: It had better be only rootbeer, and nothing else. 

Mistress: *hides mysterious green bottle behind typing chair* Don't worry.   


	5. Part Four: OxfordTwo days later

Book One: Eve's Daughter by Mistress of Magic  
  
Disclaimer: I don't own the 'His Dark Materials' trilogy by Phillip Pullman, but I'm a big fan. This is my fanfic. Enjoy!!  
  
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Part Four: Oxford/Two days later  
  
As a quiet twilight fell upon the city of Oxford and only mere traces of bright pink streaks of cloud remained in the wide, darkening sky, the witch silently alighted from her branch of cloud-pine, hidden, she decided, safely enough within a hidden alleyway in the part of Oxford known to all as Jericho. Lukily, no one had been there at the right time to witness seeing the witch and her beautiful snow goose daemon enter the strange city alone. Serafina Pekkala would have normally paused a little to take in her poor surroundings--what one of the rougher parts of town looked like, to remember it, maybe--but she had many other things to fill her mind at that moment. "Where do you think Jordan might be?" Serafina wondered aloud. Kasia, who had been sent off to alert the other witch queens Reina Miti and Ieva Kasku and had currently reunited with his witch upon hearing her call, did not answer immediatley, for he himself was not all too sure. Stepping out of the alleyway and onto the dusty street paved with dusty, flat cobblestones, she decided it might be for the best she take the cloud-pine with her; she could need it at any time later. "I don't know," Kaisa finally whispered in reply. He glanced warily around them, making sure they were not being followed, nervous to be in the midst of so much civillization. Serafina shared her daemon's feelings as always, but chose not to allow her slight fear to show. Her eyes darted this way and that, taking sure notice of all the buildings that were evidently not houses, paying special attention to the larger ones; for these could very well be the famous colleges; and any one immense structure out of those could be the one known as Jordan. There were only a few remaining people out on the streets by now; only a few night-goers, mostly composed of hard-eyed older men in dark threadbare suits and hats and haggard women who wore cheap heavy black eye makeup that smudged and ran. Their daemons stared at what to them was evidently a strangely-dressed young woman and her snow goose daemon with a solemn, silent dissaproval that the witch could feel in the air. One of the men who was obviously half gyptian leaned up against an iron lampost, clumsily took a drink out of a small, silver rectangular decanter he had clenched in his hand, and smiled drunkenly at the lovely fair-haired newcomer who passed him carrying a live branch of cloud-pine; and he said in a voice that was very much slurred by spirits, "Well, 'ello, there, love, wanna come over here and...?" the rest of what he had to say was dissolved a mirthless laugh, and then a hacking cough after which he leaned over and spit a wad phlegm into the dirty gutter. Serafina Pekkala ingored him completley, and with tight lips bore the bad atmosphere the stares gave off as she walked on, picking up her pace a little. She passed the tavern the man must have recently come out of, from which she could hear a woman's high, sweet singing as some instrument played, and cheers after every pause, enjoying the bad humor that was woven into the lyrics. The witch calmly walked the rest of the way out of Jericho, not daring to seek refuge in the narrow pathways behind the shacks and boarding houses, for fear of what else she might find there in the darker shadows. She kept to the lamplight, and said with a touch of anger under her breath, "We shouldn't have landed here, Kasia...I wish it were day, so we could find the gyptians. They would have helped us." For a moment, she eyed the wide canal that ran beside Jericho near the clayburners' beds, which was like a straight dark river this time of night, with the sliver that was the new moon shining on the small ripples and waves. There was one of the gyptains' brightly-painted narrowboat, safely docked near the short, rough wooden pier; but there was no one out on the deck, and Serafina could not see the warm halo marking candlelight, or even the different distinctive light of a naptha lamp. Either the family that owned the boat were alseep, or visiting one of the taverns for a drink. The two were silent as they turned the bend, staying on the road, passing houses and other buildings, and under one of the smaller colleges that could have easily been mistaken for an old convent, with statues of people carved out of cold grey granite. The figures seemed to loom over her, their pupiless eyes gazing down at the witch and her daemon. "This one can't be Jordan," Kasia commented in a quiet voice. "Wouldn't it be much larger?" There was a sign to mark the college's name, a reclanguar brass plaque that was printed with formal, angular, ugly charachters Serafina could not read: this was writing in Lyra's language, writing Serafina had seen before, and could reconize only a few of the symbols. "Is there anyone in this place who could help us?" Kasia asked his witch, who had obviously been thinking the same thing, and was eyeing the dark, shimmering waters canal harbor once again. "No one but the gyptians," Serafina replied. "But it is nighttime now, they need their rest and so do we, Kasia." she took hold of the branch of cloud- pine in her right hand, lowered it, and prepared to fly. Kasia flapped his wings in response. "Where to this time?" he asked. "Anywhere, Kasia," the witch said. "Anywhere until morning comes, and then we must set out again to find Lyra's daughter." At those last three words, an expression of sadness crossed Serafina Pekkala's face, but only for a fleeting moment, before she and her snow goose daemon took flight. "I only hope we'll be able to find her."  
  
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Mistress: ~_~ *snoring and talking in sleep* Ahhh...ohhh...spaggetti... Catina: *coughs* o_0 Whut? Eh? Mistress: ~_~ *still sleeping* Catina: Hunh? She's sleeping?! o_0# Oh, come on.... Mistress: *bubble forms on left nostril* Catina: *gags* Sheesh, this is too nasty...sheesh...*gets a megaphone from closet* Mistress: Noodles, yes...! *continues to snore* Catina: *speaks into megaphone* MISTRESS-CHAN no BAKA! WAKE UP THIS INSTANT, YOUNG LADY! Mistress: *suddenly wakes up* AHHHH!! Catina-chan! Don't DO that! Catina: *laughs evilly* hehehehehehe...hehe..hehe. Ha. Mistress: Great L-sama, my HEART! *gasps convuslively* Catina: Hunh? Eh? OH MY! Mistress: I'll KILL you! Catina: *gasps fearfully* Oh no! Well, on to next chapter! nooooooooo!!!!!!!!! 


	6. Part Five: In Ten Year's Time

Book One: Eve's Daughter 

By Mistress of Magic 

Disclaimer: I don't own the 'His Dark Materials' trilogy by Phillip Pullman, but I'm a big fan. This is my fanfic. Enjoy!! 

Sadly, I hurt all over right now, people, so don't expect too much from this chapter, although some of you might still like it. *hollow laugh* The reason why? Yesterday, one of my brothers and his friends ganged up on me, and threw stones. I kid you not. Said I was a _witch_, they did! 

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Part Five: In Ten Years' Time/ _Next day, __noon___

Kerim, an aging half-gyptian who sometimes worked at Jordan College, was deeply troubled, as he had truly been during these last few weeks. 

As he walked the usual route to his station at Jordan from the canals where he lived alone in one of the oldest and smallest narrow boats ever seen in Oxford, he solemnly stared down at his shoes, thinking hard. He did not whistle on his way to the College, as he normally would have if anything different had happened...but because of this, he was destrought. 

Kerim would have never in a thousand years have thought that this would be the way it would end for the little girl he had protected in secret, and spied on completely unseen for the rest of the gyptians by order of Lord Faa. He had been very fond of Lyra, dropping in unseen from time to time to make sure she didn't cause too much trouble unintentionally or no for the servants and Scholars during her half-wild, half-civilized childhood. 

It was still a difficult thing to believe that the same little girl, although a girl no longer, Lyra Belacqua, had been murdered only a few weeks past. 

Every gyptian family also knew about this, and also shared Kerim's concern more or less. Each person who had known Lyra coped with her strange assassination in their own way. It purely frightened some, and simply confused many others. 

The old Ma Costa had wept upon learning of Lyra's death as she would have wept for her own child. She also wept for Lyra's child. 

_What could have happened to her? And why?_ Kerim thought. 

Since the young woman's mysterious death, men and sometimes women of some higher authority had been coming in and out of Jordan, searching for any sort of possible clue, asking questions, and taking things out of what was formally the young woman's bedroom, and wondering what should be done with Lyra's daughter, although these people were no detectives or agents for some orphanage. 

_Her daughter_, he thought. _Little Nydia...what's going to happen to her? _

As Kerim began to finish the route, deep in serious thought, he took no notice of the woman under one of the sapling maple trees amidst the row of ten that grew on the side of the dirty cobblestone road, who could have only been a witch. 

Not sure what move to make next, and slightly indignant because of it, she stood with her snow goose daemon, in the bit of light shadow the tree gave off like a tall sundial. She had kept out of sight here throughout most of the night, and looked as though she had allowed herself next to no sleep in quite some time. 

The witch watched Kerim from her hiding place, and studied him. The old man seemed to be part gyptian; he dressed simply, wearing a faded blue linen shirt with a stiff collar which was tucked into an old pair of trousers made of some dark cloth. His hair, not very long, which was decidedly more silver than black during these last few years, was more or less neatly combed back from his forehead, and tied back with a thin piece of string. As he made his way down the length of the road, his thick black brows were knitted in what could have been frustration. 

"Who do you think he is?" Kasia asked Serafina suddenly, his voice causing a pause in the witch's own thoughts. 

"A gyptian," Serafina replied calmly, putting one pale hand on the top of Kasia's graceful head. "I think we can trust him, Kasia. I wonder if he could tell us where Jordan might be..." 

"I suppose we should ask him, then," Kasia said as he and the witch, cloud-pine in hand, left the shelter the small tree gave off. 

Serafina Pekkala quickly caught up with the man, just as he was turning around the bend in the street, and said, "Excuse me, Sir---" 

"Yes?" Kerim muttered distractedly, finally noticing the witch. Not completely torn from his previous thoughts, he chose to regard her for a moment before either of them continued, never having been much of a talker himself. 

This woman looked like nothing like anyone he had ever seen in his life, however long it had been. Her daemon stood firmly planted at her bare feet, staring up at him with unreadable black eyes that were like twin onyx marbles encircled with rings of sky blue. His eyes fell on the woman's face again. Her eyes were the same kind as her daemon's, although bright green in color, and they were possibly the most strange feature about her; the eyes seemed to hold all the ages of heartbreak and mystery of the universe. She faced him with a kind of stoicism he could not remember ever seeing in a person. Her clothes were in tatters, and she wore a garland of little red flowers around her brow. 

Indeed, she was different from everyone and everything else in all of Oxford, completely out of place. She must have come a long way from somewhere, wherever that somewhere was. 

It was then he noticed the strong branch of what appeared to be some sort of pine tree in her hand. Why was she carrying a thing that with her? It made him wonder. He wanted to ask, "Who are you?", and then, "What are you?" before anything else, but had no wish to offend this beautiful stranger. His small, thin yellow and green snake daemon, sensing his human counterpart's surprised thoughts, quietly slid out of one of the wide pockets of Kerim's shirt to curl around his neck, staring silently at the witch. 

"Excuse me," the woman politely said to him again, her voice high with anticipation, "If you know, would you please tell us where Jordan College is?" 

"_Jordan_ College, you say, Ma'am?" 

"Yes," said the witch without hesitation. 

For a moment the old man eyed the uncanny woman and her daemon uncertainly, and with a trace of newfound feeling that might have been anger or even apprehension, or a combination of both. 

But she seemed completely oblivious to this fact, and only stood cloaked wordless in the guise of patience, waiting for whatever answer she might get. 

Kerim was considering weather he should or should not question the strange woman. _What business has she at __Jordan__?_ he thought. Was she one of the people who had been lurking around the College, asking unexpected questions of their own? 

For some reason, Kerim did not think she was. She was different. But all the same, he found in increasingly difficult to trust anyone he did not know very well these days. 

_Still_, the old half-gyptian thought, _I'd better be giving the lady an answer, I suppose_. 

He said simply, "Of course, Ma'am." The man beckoned for her to follow him with a small, weary movement of his fingers as the woman sincerely thanked him. 

As he guided her around the bend and past several flat buildings, he said, "My work is at the College," sensing a conversation was needed to fill up the still silence between them. 

"Is it?" Serafina Pekkala said with some sudden interest. "What do you do there? What is your name?" 

Kerim explained as well as he could how he sometimes worked as one of the servants, or a janitor, or did any small odd jobs around the College that were needed. "The name's Kerim, Ma'am," he said finally. 

"And my name is Serafina Pekkala," Serafina Pekkala said politely to him. "My daemon is called Kasia." There was no need for him to know she was a witch, Serafina decided, unless he asked it of her. She did not know now a person from this place would react to this, although in truth Kerim had a fair good idea of exactly what this woman was. 

"This old lady's Severia," Kerim replied, motioning to the snake. He tried to crack a half-smile, and succeeded in keeping it. "Did you want to see the Master?" he asked her. "I'm afraid he is not here today. Next week he should be coming around for a bit of a visit, though." 

Serafina Pekkala smiled at him, meeting his eyes to show she meant him no ill will, then said, "No. To tell you the truth, I was wondering if I could talk to you or someone about Lyra Silvertongue-Belacqua. You see, I was a close friend of Lyra's." 

At the sound of Lyra's name, Kerim must have froze a little in midstep or his expression changed because the witch said very quickly, "Were you too a friend of Lyra's?" 

"That I certainly was, Ma'am," Kerim said quietly. "Knew Lyra since she was just a little sprite, I did." His voice showed his sadness as the two approached the city of Oxford's grandest and richest College. 

"I take it that you also know her daughter, then?" Kerim decided to ask. He needed to know where this small talk was leading; he may have been wrong. What if this Serafina Pekkala was not a witch, and one of the orphanage workers after all? 

"No, I do not know her. I have never seen her. I only knew her mother, and know of what happened to her although how remains a mystery. I mostly want to see if her child is safe." 

At this, Kerim raised an eyebrow. "Mostly?" 

"I am concerned of what will happen to her," Serafina Pekkala answered immediately. "Do you know anything?" 

"No, Ma'am," Kerim said, "That I don't. And there is more people than just us who want to know a thing or two on the matter, too." 

"The gyptians," Serafina mused. "I know them. I was---am, a friend of Lord John Faa's family....I loved Farder Coram very much," she suddenly added with sadness, but it also struck Kerim that it was a kind of sadness without bitterness. 

Kerim said nothing at first, then, "It was Lord Faa hisself, it was, who told me to keep a good eye on little Lyra." Serafina looked at him, and he suddenly winked at her, with another smile. "I ended up having to keep both." 

"I see," the witch replied. 

"Well, here it is," Kerim said as the two approached the grandest and richest College in the city of Oxford. "This is Jordan College." 

Serafina Pekkala slowly looked upwards at the immense structure, at the strikingly imperfect, plainless beauty of it. The building was obviously very old, and was falling apart in some of the oldest places, while being rebuilt here and there in others. The place had been constructed in both stone and wood, supported by two intricately carved Greek-style dark granite pillars, and finished off with a tall pair of heavily lacquered oak wood doors accompanied with two heavy brass knockers molded in the shape of two grand lions' heads that were not necessarily for use, but perhaps for looks, instead. 

In all, it was unlike any manmade structure the witch could ever remember seeing in all three-hundred years or more of her life. 

"Quite impressive, isn't it, eh?" Kerim said with a slight chuckle. "Come with me, I'll lead you in. The Scholars shouldn't mind overly much. We've been having all sorts of new faces trespassing as of late, we have." 

"Trespassing?" Serafina Pekkala asked, knitting her brow. "Who?" 

"_I'm_ not sure on that one," Kerim answered. "People may be wanting to take young Nydia away from us, I imagine...But we _did_ raise little Lyra right, didn't we?" his face and the emerald-scaled face of his daemon both reflected Serafina's concern. 

"I know you did," Serafina Pekkala said to him trustingly. "Otherwise, how could I have loved Lyra as I did? The child was like a daughter to me..." 

"She was like that to us all, I'm sure," was Kerim's reply as he pulled one of the massive doors open, and held it while the witch walked in. 

They made their way down the long, red-carpeted corridor that led to a scarce few of the College's spare rooms, and passed Jordan's large kitchen where the staff in charge of the cooking were working away at the midday meal. 

"Nydia's room's up the stairs," Kerim said. "On the second floor. Hers is the same room as Lyra's was." 

The witch and the gyptian passed by the dining room and another office whose door was shut, and made their way up the long, steep flight of rickety wooden stairs until they reached a new corridor, this one at least half the length of the one upon entering Jordan College, and uncarpeted. Lyra's small bedroom was the second door on the right, and the door was hanging only slightly ajar when Kerim opened it. 

"We don't leave the little thing alone, of course," he said without really a need, for inside the room sitting on the narrow cotlike bed, was a gray-haired woman who was well into the winter years of her life. She was a gyptian judging from the dusky-dark skin and wise, tear-dampened dark eyes framed by a fringe of thick, black eyelashes. Serafina Pekkala could see that the baby was in the old woman's arms, apparently peacefully sleeping. 

Ma Costa abruptly gazed up at the two familiar faces in the doorway, and then, without a word, gingerly patted a place on the bed next to her. 

"Mrs. Costa," Kerim said quietly, "This woman is Serafina Pekkala, a friend of Lyra's and of Farder Coram's gyptians. She wanted to come to see Lyra's daughter." 

"Ah," Ma Costa whispered seemingly neither to Serafina or Kerim. "And who else could she be then?" She met the witch's eyes. "Yes, I know you. Farder Coram and my little Lyra talked about you and your witches on more than one occasion, I should say..." The old woman gave a quiet, half-hearted laugh. "Serafina Pekkala. Please sit down. It's a shame you never had a chance to see the babe and Lyra before this." 

The witch took her place next to Ma Costa, while Kerim chose to remain standing, not sure weather the cheap bed was able to support two women and a full-grown man or not. For the first time, Serafina Pekkala saw Lyra's daughter, Nydia. 

It did not seem to the witch that the child resembled like Lyra, at least not for now. Nydia's hair was a tawny shade darker than Lyra's had been, which promised not to be perfectly straight like her mother's, although all else seemed to be more or less the same. 

But it didn't matter. In Nydia the witch saw Lyra above all other things. Turning to Ma Costa she said, "She'll have her mother's spirit." 

At this, the old gyptian woman smiled, causing the fine spider's web of lines around the corners of her mouth and eyes to become more prominent. "Yes, that's we're all sure of," she said, glancing at Kerim, who gave a curt nod of his head. 

"What will be happening to her, if you know?" Serafina Pekkala wanted to know at last. 

"I suppose she'll be raised among the servants' children right here, much like her mother was brought up," Ma Costa said with a sigh. "We're with her when we can be. If it's not Kerim there, or one of my boys or their wives, it's me. At least, that's what will happen if our gyptians can do anything about it....I'd gladly take her in meself, but I'm an old woman. What good could I ever do a child this age? I don't know, but I do know that we'll all do everything we can to keep the little mite with us." 

"I understand," Kerim said, putting a voice to Serafina's opinion. 

Ma Costa then sighed heavily, and Serafina Pekkala put a hand on the old woman's thin shoulder. "It's alright," Ma Costa said wearily. "It's just---just---" she was unable to put her thoughts into words at this point, and a single tear slid down her weathered cheek, catching at the corner of her lips. At last she asked hopelessly, her voice cracking as more tears came forth, "_Why did my Lyra have to die?_" The woman's ancient hawk daemon let out a small, sad screech, sounding like a single dwindling note from a reed pipe. 

The witch caught the old woman in her arms as a thin convulsive sob escaped her lips and all of a sudden her entire body was racked with tears. Serafina too shuddered while comforting the old woman as if the room had suddenly grown cold. Throughout this, the baby remained safely asleep. 

Serafina Pekkala could only stand to say, "I know. Many people loved her, as you did. This was never your fault. Whoever was involved in her death will pay all in good time." 

Then Ma Costa sniffed quietly, and sat up straight. "Yes. I know they will, Serafina Pekkala. Kerim." 

"A man from the church tried to take Lyra's life once before," Serafina mused, almost inwardly. "But he was stopped that time. My witches and I think that it may be other people from this church who succeeded in murdering her this time...We think they may be after Nydia this time, too, so she will not carry on her mother's legacy. I will not let that happen." 

Without warning, the three noticed that the baby was awake, although she did not seem to be about to cry. She lay silently, and her eyes were open halfway. Her tiny daemon, whose current shape was that of a periwinkle moth, fluttered in the air for a few seconds and then folded its wings as it resumed its perch on the little girl's tawny-dark hair. 

"So this is Lyra's daughter," Serafina Pekkala suddenly said matter-of-factly. She was smiling broadly, as was Kerim, and thought, _Yes__, this one will be exactly like Lyra, although some of Will's definitely in there, too. _The smile deepened, and she lightly touched the wisps of Nydia's hair with a gentle hand. 

She retrieved the slender branch of cloud-pine which she had previously left leaned up against the wall facing westwards, and said, "I have to go now; there is other business I must attend to soon." She was eyeing the two gyptians very seriously. "You two do your best to keep the child to raise her here at Jordan. I will come back to see her in ten years' time. We will see what happens by then." And then she took of her crown, and turning to face Kerim she said, "I trust you will be 'keeping an eye', as you said, on her?" The witch waited until Kerim nodded positively, then plucked off one of the little crimson flowers from the crown. "Here. Take this, and never lost sight of it. If anything at all ever happens to Nydia, use this flower to call me. Wherever I am, I promise I shall hear your voice." 

Ma Costa remained sitting, her eyes bright with bald-faced wonder. Again, the witch smiled, knowing for sure all would be safe in the end if they could ever help it. "I hope all of you always stay safe, and always keep her safe, for Lyra's sake. And goodbye for now." She glanced at the baby one last time before leaving. "Goodbye, Nydia." _Until I see you again_. 

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~ 

Mistress: Wow, that was a lot longer than I thought it was going to be! 

Catina: Me too! 

Mistress: *glances at Catina* Now, who asked YOUR opinion? 

Catina: *looks down at feet* Well...I...I don't know, I--- 

Mistress: Shut up. I need to think! Things are really starting to move around now! 

Catina: How many times for how many chapters have you been saying that for? 

Mistress: *sniffs* I don't know! Didn't I tell you to shut up? 

Catina: *says nothing* 

Mistress: That's what I thought. Now, I need to start working on the next chapter. I hope I'll have some more time for this new one than I did for this one I just finished writing. 

Catina: I'm sure you will. 

Mistress: *smiles* See? Now, that's the kind of things I don't mind hearing you say. Everything else... 

Catina: How 'bout, 'On To the Next Chapter'? 

Mistress: _Excellent_. 


End file.
